When Life is Too Much
The Last 2.5 Years that Led up to Now...(apologies in advance...because this is a LONG post)
While the idea of starting my book from the beginning (2-1/2 years ago) seemed daunting, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. As it was, I had thought about finishing this book daily for the entire time I wasn’t writing it. But there was just never enough time…and perhaps I just didn’t have enough courage yet.
During covid lockdowns, I thought for sure there was an opportunity to get it done. Everyone in my office was working from home, except me. I had two teenagers at home in a 1,000 square foot space, and to be honest the last place I wanted to be was there, as we were all bursting at the seams. I tried to stay at the office after my work was done every day so I could write and that wasn’t really going well because with there being no sports or other after school activities, I wanted to be home to make dinner and see the girls, but then after I rarely had the motivation to drag myself back to the office. My oldest daughter (whose graduation festivities never got to happen) was going to be leaving for her first year of college in August, and it seemed to be one thing or another that was pulling my attention in other directions. Come July, our senior accountant let me know that was going to be retiring. I had taken the job as office manager a few years prior, so that I could work part-time, have relatively flexible hours, and have a far less stressful and unpredictable job then accounting often is. This was my main priority while my girls were in high school because I felt it was one of the most crucial times in their lives. At the same time, I know myself well enough to know I don’t have the capacity to handle the things that come up for them in life while juggling a stressful job at the same time.
The reason I had moved 1,700 miles across the country in the first place was to have a fresh start, leaving behind co-dependent patterns of over-giving to people, places and things I was allowing to drain my life force energy.
From the start, it had seemed the timing would be perfect for me to take on the senior accounting role by the time my co-worker, and now great friend, was ready to retire…but now it was happening quite a bit sooner than I anticipated. I agreed to start in October, giving me time to move my daughter to South Carolina in August to start college, and then the month of September to train a new office manager. But as soon as she told me, I immediately started working even more hours than I had prior, in hopes of creating a super-duper training manual in preparation of my replacement coming aboard, since no one had a clue of the work I did, and so that I wouldn’t be bombarded with questions after the month I had allocated to train her (and yes for several months thereafter I was constantly saying “did you look in the training manual…because there are step by step instructions with screenshots on how to handle that”) so I would then be free to learn and take over the roles of the senior accountant.
Barely 6 months into the transition, and just enough time to be getting the hang of everything, I got a job opening notification that American Airlines (Piedmont division) was hiring a cross trained agent for our small regional airport in Durango, Colorado (DRO). I had always regretted I hadn’t pursued a career with an airline right out of high school, and was surprised to find at 54 years old, it wasn’t too late. Years prior, I had started an account with Indeed (for job searching) and the only criteria for which they were ever to notify me was if an airline job opened at DRO. Other than that, I had no intention of leaving my job because I loved everything about it. By this time in my life, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to work for an airline but more because it costs over $800 to fly round trip from Durango to Detroit. For years, I had been driving to Albuquerque (4 hours) or Denver (6.5 hours) to save money when flying myself and/or the girls to and from. However, when you work for an airline, you get free (standby) flight benefits for you and your dependents.
I started training with the airline appx. 20 hours a week while also working my other job (especially because the pay sucks working for an airline unless maybe you are a pilot or a mechanic) but I knew I wouldn’t be able to retain that workload for long. I was the first person who had been hired to work at the airport since before covid and when you are low man on the totem pole, you are always the one to get called in to mandatorily work whenever they are short and it’s easy to get fired if you don’t. The day I had my interview, was the same day my brother, and only sibling, died from complications of pulmonary fibrosis.
Shortly thereafter, I had to go to Dallas for 3 days of ramp training (to work outside around the planes) and if you don’t pass, you are fired. After the first two hours of class, the instructor said “We are going to take a 30 minute break and when we return, it will be time to take our airport code exam and you need to get at least 80% to pass”. “Wait what?! What are airport codes, “she who is always prepared” asked?” Airport codes are a series of unique 3 letter codes used to identify every airport in the country. I was supposed to have been given a book that included not only the entire list of these codes to memorize, but also about 20 hours of other coursework that had to be completed before the end of training to pass.
The idea was that it would be done in advance of training having started, but here I was having no clue that there were any such requirements.
The instructor got on the phone with the airport manager, who confirmed it had been a couple years since a new person had been hired and he had, in fact, forgotten to give me any of the pre-course instructions. He then called me to apologize and said he would book me on the next flight back and I could sign up for the next course that was offered. Well, the problem with that (I thought to myself) is I need to get this out of the way because I have kids (albeit teenagers) at home and a job that holds way more priority than this one to try and work around. I said “I’m going to take the next 15 minutes and do my best to memorize the codes and take the test. Maybe I can pass it.” So, I put in earplugs and started to scan the list of several hundred of the most common International Air Transport Association (IATA) codes.
Some of them are easily identifiable while some make no sense at all (i.e. Orlando is MCO; Nashville is BNA). I used a word association technique to help with the ones that I knew I wouldn’t remember (i.e. MCO = Mickey and Co; Gwen Stefani married Blake Shelton…he’s a country star and “This Shit is Banannas! IYKYK lol). The way I study is to start big and then narrow it down to what I know I don’t know, rather than to continue scanning over what I know that I know, by crossing out everything I don’t want to see again. As I was doing this it was though my eyes were just somehow drawn to what I still needed to know almost as though it was highlighted with light. Often these were airports I had at least heard of before, so I suspected they mattered more than others. I took the text and passed with 93%. I had been looking forward to 3 nights in my own hotel room, with plans of binge-watching Netflix and taking hot baths, but instead I barely got 5 hours of sleep every night as I churned through all the additional pre-course work that I had gotten weeks after everyone else.
I won’t get into all the details of this, as most of you who know me probably already know. But a short time later, I went home for my brother’s “celebration of life” and ended up having both of my parents admitted to the hospital with covid. My mom died in the hospital six weeks later. Throughout that time, I was grateful to use my new flight benefits to go back and forth to Michigan several times. I got covid myself a couple days after returning home while they were hospitalized, and was horribly ill for 9 of the 10 days I was in quarantine.
I returned to Michigan to accompany my dad when my mom was taken off life support and make funeral/burial arrangements. Then I went back to Colorado for work. Then I went back to Michigan for the funeral but had to skip the burial, because I could not imagine when else I could possibly reschedule it for, I had to go back to Dallas for 2 weeks of customer service (ticket counter/gate) training, with only two days in between to be back in Colorado over the weekend to catch up on my other job. Part of me felt bad to not be at the burial. But that was only because it felt socially unacceptable to not be. I was completely at peace, by that point, with my mother’s passing. Miraculous things happened from the time I was finally allowed into the hospital to see her.
While I had started my visit trying to encourage her to fight, I felt her tell me (since she was unconscious) that she wanted to go…that since her grandchildren didn’t need her so much anymore…she had served her purpose and didn’t really want to be here anymore…that she couldn’t see herself being motivated to rehabilitate and it would be miserable…that she missed her son…and her parents…that she was just so tired. The nurse first reduced the morphine to see if she would become conscious and she seemed very agitated. Again, I could feel her thoughts as she struggled between contemplating the life events to still unfold in all of our lives that she would miss…and feeling guilty that she wanted to go…I asked if they could instead increase the morphine to let her pass more easily. She was immediately more peaceful and passed shortly thereafter.
My dad and I drove to the cemetery to make burial arrangements. When we were leaving, the traffic was terrible and it seemed like it would take forever to turn onto the main road, when suddenly I felt such peace…the traffic cleared entirely (no car in sight) and as I pulled onto the road, a song I loved and hadn’t heard in years, by the band Styx (interestingly the river of the underworld) “Come Sail Away” came on the radio. It was as though the radio hadn’t even been on before that. I listened intently to the words as I drove down the open road. It starts off slow and mesmerizingly melodic, reminiscing on the past, when suddenly the entire beat and tone of the song changes, as it shifts gears into talking of a gathering of angels appearing above one’s head, as well as hope, starships and heading for the skies. I knew my mom was sharing her experience of what had just happened to her (pre/post morphine)...because I had felt exactly that in the room with her!
We had always ripped on my mom for her crazy driving. My dad had retired from Ford Motor Company, and my mom most recently had driven a used Ford Focus (think: bottom of the line, and pre-owned, to boot). As I drove down the road, in the left lane of a two lane road, heading now to the funeral home…the car ahead of me slowed down to be driving maybe 15-20 miles per hour, while the speed limit was 45. The car started to move over to the right lane, then instead moved back into the left, still driving as slowly. WTH? Starting to get annoyed, I noticed a vanity plate and wanted to see what it said…so squinting, moving closer to the vehicle…I realized it said “GRAMMA”. That is what all her grandkids called her. Then, I realize it is a Lincoln Corsair (think: top of the line, brand spanking new). I knew this was no mistake. Also, all my life, I remember her saying a “Corvair” had always been her dream car, not that this was that, but also “air” was not lost on me. I have since gone on to feel her around me many more times.
Early in the summer, I went back to Michigan for a week during which I did a huge cleaning/purge at my parent’s house in which I filled up 80% of a 40-yard dumpster singlehandedly. My hours at the airport, especially the first several months, were on the night shift which at the time was around 11 pm to 3 am. But sometimes, depending on flight schedules, would be 8 pm to midnight. But if I traded with people, to cover my trips to Michigan, I would have to work other people’s shifts. These might be 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., or 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. If a flight is late, even if it’s several hours late, or on maintenance hold, I would have to stay until it arrived/departed. Thankfully, I knew my accounting job and its deadlines like the back of my hand by then, and could do that work whenever I wanted, provided it all got done. Sometimes I would work to 11:00 at night to meet a deadline, or get there at 4:00 a.m. after getting off a night shift and knowing I was too wired to fall asleep.
I still wasn’t getting much time to write.
My oldest daughter had a tough time with her first year of college due to having to spend much of it in complete isolation and she didn’t want to return. She decided to take a gap year and think more deeply about what she wanted to do. My younger daughter had continued to do school online, even though she could have returned to class in some sort of masked pod situation, had opted to stay home. She had at least had a car and the ability to escape into the mountains any chance she got, and she started dating a really, sweet boy at the beginning of the school year and that brought both some major ups and major downs that she had the solitary of an often empty house to navigate through. I had been using my oldest’s room while she was gone, and not gonna lie, it was kind of a bummer having to revert to the cramped quarters of my lumpy day bed of the prior 5 years, separated only from our kitchen/living room by room darkening curtains.
Simultaneously, I had to give up the huge, bright, private office I had been using for my accounting job because everyone got notice it was time to return to the office. That meant I had to move back down to the lobby where people would be continually coming and going and sit at a desk alongside the office manager who would be talking to people who came in for appointments, or on the phone, or to me about various aspects of her job (which had once been my job). When I am doing accounting work, I need two things…space to spread out all my papers and quiet. Now I had neither, with significantly less natural light down there, to boot.
Meanwhile, my younger daughter had gotten accustomed to living as though she were an only child, and the girls were often at each other’s throats. I had not expected this, since they had gotten closer than they ever had been during the first 6 months of the lockdown. Since so many people had been stuck at home, office rents were at an unexpected low. I decided to rent an office space for myself to try and regain my sanity. I bought a super comfy leather chair and ottoman for $50 and the woman I bought it from had her husband deliver it for free and he helped me drag it up to my 2nd floor space. Next, I moved all my plants there. Without much free time to take advantage of the new space, sometimes I would just go there and snuggle in for a 20-minute power nap.
I love to fascia blast and I hadn’t the space to do it since my daughter had returned to her room from college (google it, if you don’t know the amazingness of fascia blasting). I set up a huge mirror, yoga mat, pop-up-portable sauna/room heater for the infrared benefits of both, mini freezer for my collection of gel packs for their cryogenic benefits, together with some dumbbells and a blow-up exercise peanut that I used to activate my muscles afterward. I looked forward to getting in at least one 3-hour routine every week while I binge watched Netflix. It was good for my soul.
One day I had the idea that, “duh, I should start doing some writing here”. I love a huge desktop…and such desks are heavy, but just imagining how I would get it up there, if I could even find an affordable one in our small, ridiculously expensive mountain town, drained the energy right out of me.
2 days later the most perfect desk was literally in the hallway next to my door. I hadn’t told one single person I’d wanted a desk. The offices on either side of mine were vacant, so I wondered if someone had moved it out of one of them for the taking?! A “free” sign would have been helpful. It was still there two weeks later, and that was obvious enough of a sign for me to put cardboard under the feet and slide the very heavy, metal desk (with a huge Formica desktop) into my office. I put it right in front of the large double windows. It couldn’t have been more perfect!!
I tried to get in the flow of writing, but my mind was all over the place. Life had just been too much, and the last thing I wanted to do when I had downtime was to write. I knew I had to put it on the backburner, yet again, for my own sanity. “Just enjoy the moments and opportunities you have right now” said my higher self (whom I’ve named Arden Dodd). While I had very little spare time, I did finally have money to spare from the second job, and both girls were working, as well.
I felt like (good) change was coming and that I just needed to hang in there. I felt so deeply entrenched in my life, I couldn’t imagine what kind of change I could even begin to dream might be coming. I started to get rid of stuff. I’ve found when I don’t like the way my life is feeling, rather than start to strategize what new direction to go in (which was once my Modis Operandi), it was more productive to start clearing out what I don’t like from my current life…including the cobwebs. Sort of like Michelangelo saying he sculpted “David” out of a discarded piece of marble by looking inside and seeing “David” and then chipping away at all the parts that weren’t “David”.
I call my version “getting rid of the dead chi”. I start with the low hanging fruit, where certain things stand out as being ready to be let go of. Is it for the garbage? Does it want to be donated? Gifted? Sold? I move things off the back of shelves and out of the cupboards, where they had ended up the last time I didn’t know what to do with them. I wipe down the surfaces and vacuum under and behind things. One of my favorite things is to fill up the garbage dumpster to the rim the night before garbage day.
My youngest daughter graduated 6 months ahead of her class, which was a Godsend, since she hated school. I remember feeling the exact same way when I was in high school. Using my flight benefits, I took her to Puerto Vallarta to celebrate. The morning we flew out I had been working since 11:00 p.m. with two planes landing, back to back, in a blizzard, for which our crew of 4 had to plow, shovel and salt the ramp for the planes to taxi in; hook up a generator to the plane; push up the stairs; lead the passengers to the furthest door to go inside without sliding around, drive up a belt loader to the cargo bin…climb up into and unload the baggage from the planes and drive it over and unload it to baggage claim; do all there is to do to clean and prep the planes to sit overnight, including dumping the water and lavatory, taking all the garbage to the dumpsters and move all the equipment back indoors in freezing conditions. All this shit for a free plane ride. I was exhausted and hating that job more than ever, but the thought of the beach in my near future kept me going. I had hoped to get off work and drive to pick her up, since she had never driven in that amount of snow, but due to the overtime, I called to tell her she was going to have to load our bags and wing it…she got there in just enough time for me to change clothes and make our flight. An additional 45-minute delay on the tarmac, to de-ice the plane, barely got us to our connection in time and we ran to our gate and made it with only minutes to spare. We had the most amazing 4 days and 3 nights at a lovely Airbnb that I booked once we were sitting in our seats on the plane.
My oldest daughter was taking full advantage of the free airfare and she went to Europe 3 separate times as a solo traveler. I was so proud of her for figuring out every last detail on her own, including working to pay for her hostels, food and local transportation. But I knew she wanted to go somewhere alone with me, as well, and while I was a little hesitant about spending the money, I really wanted that too. Two months later, I took her to Isla Mujeres, an amazing little island off the coast of Cancun. Getting there was hell. This time there had also been a huge snowstorm the night before, but not one that I had just worked in and was so grateful to be missing. Our first flight was delayed, so we missed the second flight by mere minutes, and so many flights were delayed or overbooked, so we literally had to fly around all day/night from Phoenix to Seattle to Dallas, trying to get to Dallas for our 7:30 am flight to Mexico, but once again, by the grace of God, we made it with only minutes to spare. Thankfully, she had done all of the research for the trip and when we landed, we had to take a bus to the taxi terminal, then a taxi to the boat docks, then a high speed catamaran to the island, then walk maybe a ½ mile or so to the hostel, where it was too early to check-in, so we stored our bags, bought two-for-one sarongs, which we laid on the sand along the Caribbean sea and slept for a good 2 hours straight. We had the most amazing 4 days and 3 nights, my first experience in a hostel, and it was perfect at $25/night.
I was so grateful to have had these trips with each of my daughters…both on the cusp of starting their adult lives.
Two months after that, I was contemplating applying for a job a friend had told me about in Virginia Beach, and I wanted to check out the area beforehand. I flew in, rented a car with a 60% airline discount, stayed in a gross hotel that I had paid for online and couldn’t get refunded if I left, and had the bright idea that the girls could meet in Orlando and we could go to Universal Studios, something we had talked about doing for years, that I never actually had thought I’d ever be able to pull off financially. Standby travel can be hit or miss…when it hits, it’s what dreams are made of and when it misses you think it is NOT worth it and you never want to travel again for the rest of your life. Luck was on our side, and we all made it to Florida, bought ridiculously overpriced tickets to the theme park where we enjoyed every second of Harry Potter magnificence…and had smooth travels home the next morning, as thankfully, the non-rev travel gods were still shining their light upon us.
A cross trained agent is a shitty job where you are literally working the ticket counter one minute, and hightailing it outside to be standing next to the stairs of the plane the next, collecting everyone’s carryon bags that need to be loaded in the underbelly of the plane, since these regional planes don’t have the space in the overhead bins of the cabin. You might be sweating outside after spending 30 minutes in the back of the cargo bin where you just had to grab and stack 50 suitcases coming up a conveyor belt, and then get back inside on the double so you can go open the next flight and get to the gate where you will eventually be scanning boarding passes. I have never had a job with that level of high-pressure in my life, and it’s mind-blowing that it pays so little. It is probably significantly better in larger airports, because the job duties would only be the ticket counter functions OR the boarding gate functions OR the outside ramp functions. As a cross trained agent, if you are not taking advantage of the travel benefits, it is not worth it, in my opinion. Getting the time worked out to travel involves a whole other level of trading your schedule around with a bunch of other part-time agents who are mostly there for the benefits, also have other jobs to juggle, and hate the job just as much as you do. If you get stuck out of town, due to there being no available seats, and can’t get back for a scheduled workday…you can be fired or lose your travel benefits for 6 months.
Even my ex-husband got to vacation with the girls in Boston one summer, and to Portugal the next. Each of the girls did their own solo trips to Hawaii and some various other mini trips, as well. I had warned them, travel, travel, travel as fast and as far as you can, because I am not going to last much longer, but I’ll hang in there if you have a trip planned. I had tremendous guilt about everyone losing their ability to travel free, but I really hated that job and I had never hated any job I had prior. Life was really taking it’s toll. I was also managing two necessary, major renovations in my dad’s house in Michigan, and over the course of the year he had bypass heart surgery followed with a lobectomy and radiation for lung cancer, both of which, thankfully, went as smooth as they possibly could. I gained 35 lbs. during the time I worked at the airport…15 of those lbs. I used to gain and lose regularly…but the additional 20 was especially not appreciated. My cortisol levels were shot. I was hanging by a thread.
At the same time, I would find myself sitting at my desk doing my accounting job, feeling like I was literally going to shrivel up and die. I could perform the duties like clockwork, by then, but ugh…the tasks were like wading through molasses. Can this really be what my life is supposed to be about? I loved the people, the pay, the mission of the non-profit, and the work was certainly in my wheelhouse.
Then, one day, last July, I was outside sweating my ass off, doing yard work at the home I had rented for the past 6 years, very annoyed at the never-ending amount of time it required, especially since this exact kind of thing is why I didn’t want to own a house anymore. Suddenly, the man who owned the house next to me (who was also outside doing yard work and whom I’d barely ever talked to) yelled over “you should rent this house”. He had once lived there for 30 years but had turned it into a triplex a decade prior, and now rented it out year-round. Meanwhile, he lived in Mexico 10 months of the year, and spent 2 months in the summer in Colorado to check on this and another property he owned in Arizona. “Ha”, I said, totally joking “how about I be your tenant in Mexico instead”. He said, “actually, I will make you an offer too good to pass up”. He had spent many winters sailing, and this year he had bought a new sailboat and was going to spend 6 months covering 1,000 miles at sea, to bring it to his home port. He would rent me his 1,500 square foot house for $200/month (essentially for the cost of the water and electricity I would be using) while he was gone. It was 2 blocks off the coast of the Sea of Cortez, with a huge, gated yard full of citrus trees which would be ripe for the picking. Thinking there was no way I could make this happen, I said “How about next year?” to which he replied, “Why not now?” Which really got me thinking. Why not now? This opportunity might not come again. I would have 3-4 months until I would need to be there. Among other things, could I even get the funds together in time? I could not stop thinking about it. I had felt like change was coming, but never did I imagine this would be the form in which it arrived.
After a few more serious conversations, I was sure it was what I needed to do. I wasn’t loving living in this small town anymore and hadn’t a clue on how to wrap it up or where to go next. I couldn’t think of a better incentive. I put in a 3-1/2 month notice for my accounting job because I knew it was going to take a while to find and train the right person. One of those reasons is I have a martyr complex and I suffer over the fact of if I were to leave (in every situation of my life) I will let everyone down and everything will surely just collapse without me.
Next thing on the list was to get my oldest daughter moved to Michigan, where she was transferring to go back to college. I don’t know if you’ve ever moved a kid to college, but it sucks. The town, that doesn’t have adequate parking to begin with, is overcrowded with not just students, but their parents and moving trucks. Over the course of 3 days, together with her dad, we brought a pickup truck load and a couple van loads, to the house she had rented a room in…putting together various things…then figuring out what TV to buy (compliments of my dad)…I drove over ¼ of the state picking up a lamp, a dresser, a TV stand (that turned out to be big enough for a box of tissue), and then another TV stand (that was 2x too long for the space) which I then had to re-list for sale on FB Marketplace, and then another TV stand that was just right…as well as glue together a nightstand we hauled out of the garbage…then multiple trips for last minute things and stocking up the refrigerator…I was exhausted.
Next, back to Colorado to empty out my office space since the lease was up and while they had allowed me to lease month-to-month for 2 additional months, I did not want to pay for a 3rd month. I sold a couple things, but ultimately gave away the chair and desk just to get them out of there in time. It took about 6 more trips up and down to get everything else loaded up in my Prius and I swung by the rental office to drop off the key.
Last on the list is that we were in the process of moving our office space. I spent about 18 hours, over the weekend into Monday morning, packing up the last of the storage closets (and we had a lot of them), taking whiteboards, etc off the walls and listing our desks, shelves and file cabinets on Facebook marketplace and managing the sales/pickups of things, cleaning up, and many trips with a dolly full of boxes and plants, back and forth to our new office ½ block over.
I hate moving to begin with, and I always think I don’t have it in me to do yet again. Having to do all that moving over the course of 10 days was purely adrenalin.
Now to get busy creating a training manual for my job. I had been lucky to have my friend, the former accountant, to consult with over the course of my time as Senior Accountant, but she was going to be retiring a few months after I left, as well. I wanted to make sure there was written procedures for everything, as prior to me the accountant had been there 6 or 7 years and had never had time to do that. I hadn’t had time to do that either, but as a perfectionist, I couldn’t fathom leaving without having it done.
I started having conversations with a couple people about covering half the rent while I was gone. A good friend had a cousin who wanted to transition from the east coast toward the west and he was contemplating living in our space, together with my daughter, for 4-5 months while he found something more long term. I was a little worried about halting conversations with other potential tenants, because it can be a pain in the ass to move somewhere just for a short term and I knew I would feel bad when it was time for them to leave, but then my cousin in Michigan’s daughter (same age as my daughter and they had been like two peas in a pod as kids) was looking for a temporary change of scenery to contemplate her future direction in life-- she agreed to move-in for 3 months, arriving January 3, which was perfect, since my older daughter and their dad was planning on being at our place for Christmas break from school and would be headed back to Michigan by December 30.
I was so overwhelmed with packing up my belongings. I had gotten rid of a lot, piled a lot into our storage room, deconstructed the area that had once been my room, and moved a huge dining room table into that space that was now piled high with what was left to take with me. I couldn’t envision it all fitting in my Prius with me still being able to see out of the rearview mirror. My friend came to crack the whip. With her help (actually she did most of it) we got it loaded up in no time.
Finally, a week after last year’s birthday, it was time to leave. I hadn’t put snow tires on my car for the season, because I didn’t plan on seeing snow for the first winter of my life, but sure enough I hit an early blizzard in Flagstaff, AZ, but that only delayed me with very slow driving for an hour or so.
I was supposed to spend the night with a friend of a friend in Tucson, but she got so sick that she was contemplating going to the emergency room and wasn’t going to be able to accommodate me. I didn’t want to spend the night in a hotel, not only for the cost, but also because my car was full of things I needed for the next 4 months, and I had heard nightmare stories of cars getting broken into in hotel parking lots. I made the decision to sleep in a large lot adjacent to an night gas station/truck stop, where a lot of other truck/trailers were also overnighting. I have slept in my car before, on long trips, but hadn’t thought about the fact my car was packed full and I wouldn’t be able to recline my seat. Also, I had figured Arizona would be warm, but it was pretty cold. I woke up many times, but I did finally get some sleep, but also woke up an hour after I had planned to.
I had planned to get up and cross the border early, as suggested by my neighbor who was already at sea. He had told me this was the place where he spends the night when going to Mexico, but he has a sprinter van with a bed in back. I assumed I was right by the border crossing, but when I asked at the gas station, she said it was about 45 minutes away. I made it over a couple hours after I had originally hoped to, but I hadn’t realized there were two different places to cross. I had started one way, but a sign said, “truck route”, so I figured that must be wrong and turned around and went back the other way. This way was rather chaotic and after the relief of being waved through, I found myself in the crowded, bustling, ghetto area of Nogales, Mexico. The relief was replaced by panic. This is not what my neighbor had said it would look like. I was supposed to be driving along on a highway for about 15 minutes, where I would then “see” the customs office on my right. I could not figure out where the customs office was, nor how to get back to where I had crossed into Mexico to ask…not that this seemed like a good idea. At the customs office, I was supposed to park and show my passport and get a tourist card…since I was staying longer than 2 weeks. Initially, I spent about 45 minutes driving rather back and forth, including through sketchy broken-down, side streets, trying to pretend like I wasn’t a blonde, pasty white girl driving alone with a carload of stuff. I had been texting my friend, and his friend, where I would’ve stayed overnight because she spoke Spanish and used to have an export business in Nogales, but while at least comforting, was not helpful since she didn’t know where the customs office was. I finally pulled into a gas station.
In Mexico, you don’t pump your own gas. I didn’t need gas, but just wanted to ask for directions. 3 different men tried to understand what I was talking about, but none of them spoke English and I don’t speak Spanish. Finally, they called over a bilingual man, and he put a pin via Google maps as to where the customs office was. But GPS had a mind of its own and it led me astray. I found myself by some huge factory that looked more like a prison with the security fencing all around it. I saw a pick-up truck with even the back full of Mexican military men, all with automatic weapons, including one gun pointing out with a soldier behind it. I thought surely a revolution was starting, but later found out this is the norm. I really, Really, REALLY, just wanted to turn around and go home. If I hadn’t already blew up the life I had left behind, I would have. But I had an equally strong reassurance from my soul that it was all going to work out. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine how. A voice coming from within was absolutely consoling me and encouraging me that 1000s of people must cross the border each day, and they all find the customs office. This can’t be rocket-science. I’m usually a very thorough planner and couldn’t believe I hadn’t researched this more fully in advance. My neighbor had given me detailed instructions, including the importance of having a fake wallet alongside me on my seat with copies of my driver’s license and passport in it, as well as with $100 worth of American dollars, in case I got pulled over on the way. I had a map book, also recommended by him, but I was too anxious to be able to figure out anything using that, not that the customs office was identified on there anyway (I would later discover).
Finally, I found a decent signal and started Googling where was Kilometer 21, since I at least knew this was where I needed to go and Googling the customs office had come up nil. 5 hours after I had crossed the border, I had my tourist card in hand and got back on the road for the 5 ½-hour drive to San Carlos, which thankfully was as smooth as it could’ve been.
It was dark when I arrived, which was unfortunate. Once again, the GPS took me to more of a commercial area where there were obviously not any houses. I haven’t said much about my neighbor, but this is as good a time as any to say, he is very ornery...always. He is in his late 70’s, never married, nor did he have kids. He is the type of person who comes across as though everyone is incredibly stupid, except for him. I really couldn’t believe he was letting me stay at his place at all, but I eventually came to realize it was in his best interest to have his house look occupied while being gone for so long. I had been messaging him back and forth for a good part of the day, while trying to navigate, and it didn’t help that he mostly came across as worried AF that I was lost in Nogales. He is also very paranoid. Yes, there are reasons to be cautious in Mexico, but he was particularly heavy on the side of what could go wrong. I messaged him that I had made it to San Carlos, and the GPS had not led me to his house (which he had said it probably wouldn’t) and that I had just gotten gas. Thankfully, the gas station was well lit and had a bathroom that seemed brand new…super clean, bright with great sinks and toilets like you would see in most every bathroom in the U.S. (uncommon from what I had seen so far in Mexico). I would later discover it is the only gas station in the whole town that even had a public bathroom. He calls me to tell me there is some bad news. The person who had been holding the keys for me was supposed to go unlock the house and leave the keys inside on the table, but accidentally locked the house on her way out. I was going to have to wait until morning, call a locksmith, and have them unlock the door for me. WTF? I had even more concerns about trying to find a hotel in this town. Once again, I wanted to turn around and go back home. Finally, I let him talk me through how to get from the gas station to his house. I was going to sleep another night in my car, while parked out in front. I pulled out of the gas station and the low clearance on my car caused it to loudly scrape on the steep incline of the driveway cement. I was hesitant about the street he told me to drive down. It was more like an alley. There were a lot of deep ruts in the dried mud of this dirt road. I had to make about four turns, but the houses were beautiful and appeared to be well-maintained and that was a relief. I didn’t sleep very well this night either. For months now, he had added to the stress of my life by talking up Mexico, then barraging me with warnings about the potential downsides. Was he bipolar? That is sure what it seemed like.
I woke up at daybreak and drove back to the gas station wash my face and brush my teeth and hair (but especially to pee). I drove back to the house and called the locksmith. He said he would head over (my neighbor had given him a heads up). That was a good sign, but I was dreading what this was going to cost. It took him about 45 minutes to get the door open, which made my neighbor happy to know it wasn’t that easy for even a professional to break in. The cost was $30. Things were looking up! I had been sure it would’ve been closer to $200. My neighbor gave me the run through about all of the locking wrought iron security gates over every door and surrounding the porch. This wasn’t adding to my sense of security in the least bit. His van had been parked in the garage, but he walked me through moving it out and into the gated yard, which had been unlocked for me by the person who had left the keys…since there was not a key to this gate on the ring. Once I had the van out there and my car in the garage, I locked the gate with the open padlock.
I was like a jailer with 10 keys to this, that or the other lock and that alone was making my head spin. He talked me through what they were all for. I was dying to take a shower. Well, that was going to involve turning on the propane. Ugh. I didn’t realize this was a thing. I have always been afraid of even turning on a propane BBQ grill and had only ever done so maybe twice in my life. I unlocked three locks on the door wall and stepped into the beautiful back yard, closed the door and put the padlock back on the iron gate over the door behind me. I gritted my teeth and braced myself for being walked through the steps involved. First things first, he made me open the valve on the (very small) propane tank and then shut it (for practice). Then I had to use a wrench to unhook the gas line from the tank and then hook it back up (for practice). I had to know how to do these things because I would need to take it to get filled in the future (not too excited to just be learning about this). Then he talked me over to the little shed where the water heater was. I had to turn on two gas valves to the water heater, and then wtf, I had to prime and turn on the pilot?! I really, truly, once again, just wanted to go home. Once I got that on, and lived to tell you about it, he told me turn it to hot and wait about 20 minutes, after which I could take a shower, and to turn it down to just being on pilot afterward, so as not to use up too much propane, but to also still be able to use the stove. I went back to the door to the house, unlocked it, went back in, and triple locked it shut. Is it really this dangerous around here? Well, no worries, if so, I was here to write a book and wasn’t planning to go out for anything other than food…and now propane.
A hot shower, with excellent pressure, is perhaps the thing I most often give God thanks for, and this felt like one of the best showers I had ever had in my life. I thought about unpacking the car, but the house looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a few years. He had told me (that morning) “Don’t expect it be clean”. Ugh, I was so annoyed that he hadn’t offered me the option of paying someone to come before he left to clean it…but also, I could tell he didn’t much care if it was clean for himself, much less me. I went through all the locks again, to go outside, and unlock the storage/laundry room that also led (through another locked door) to the garage. I found buckets, sponges, soap, and a shop vac. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the master bedroom and living room. On his request, I had brought all my own bedding, pillows, and towels and little did I know how grateful I would be for that. The next day I cleaned the living room, kitchen, and guest room. I vacuumed every speck of the house, dusted every piece of everything, and got on my hands and knees to scrub the ceramic tiled floor throughout. Time for another shower…which drained the rest of the propane tank…so my first outing was going to be to fill it up.
Every sign was in Spanish, and it didn’t take long to realize most of the locals did not speak English. There was a gas station solely for propane. I got that filled up for about $11. It was next to a water fill station, and I had brought an empty 5-gallon jug to fill up with drinking water (50 cents). Next stop, grocery store. There are only a few, and I went to the largest…which was a fraction of the size of even the smallest stores at home. I got a dozen roses for $6 and a couple religious type tall glass candles for $1 each. A couple miles down the road, I got a coffee from a local shop that was on the opposite side of the road from the beach. I sat in my car to drink it, not feeling very secure as to where it is safe to go, or not. I drove a few miles down the main drag, in either direction of the house, just to see what was in the vicinity. I was nervous about the turn offs, not sure where they would take me, so I decided to just go back to the house. The reason I had come to Mexico at all was I was determined to get my book written. The ideal of a house all to myself for 4 months was appealing enough on its own accord, and I didn’t really care if I ever left the now, sparkly clean, interior, ever again.
All of the windows had blinds, except the door wall. He had mentioned this, saying I could hang something over it if I wanted to, so I had brought an extra flat sheet for that reason. I set up my laptop on the glass dining room table and proceeded to make piles of papers lined up along the wall. The papers consisted of several years of notes I’d jotted and summaries of writing books I’d read. After all the years of waiting, I began to write again.
Ugh. The doubt crept in quickly. I had good days and bad. What I had been sure would be a meaningful story, sure to inspire many, now seemed like nothing but a sob story. Compared to things other people have had happened in their lives, surely, I would seem like nothing but a whiner. Boo-hoo, a single mom who can’t seem to win in the love department.
Certain mornings, I would wake up with some new bright idea and before I knew it, I had 3 books going on at one time. Eventually, though, the shame dragons would creep back in, and I’d wonder what the hell I had been thinking to have quit my jobs. I spent some time each day walking around in the garden. That felt safe since it was laid out such that it was unlikely, I would be seen by anyone, in addition to either an 8 foot vine-covered cinder block wall or wrought iron gates topped with decorative spikes, depending where I was in the garden, around the entire perimeter. The fragrance wafting through the air was intoxicating. At sunset, I ventured up a spiral stairway onto the tiled rooftop of the garage to have a margarita, with homemade simple syrup and fresh squeezed juice from a lime I had picked off the tree that morning. I could see the ocean in what seemed to be only a couple blocks away, but even from up there I couldn’t figure out what way I would walk. I was afraid to leave.
After 3 weeks of not leaving for anything other than food, water, and propane, I decided I needed to get over my fear, so on a local website designed for visitors, run by an American, I booked a jeep tour of the area. I was the only guest on the itinerary for the day, probably since it was the day after Christmas. Enrique, the owner of the tour company had been raised in the area but had attended high school in California and spoke fluent English. He had also just come off a term as the mayor of the town. He drove me around, making occasional stops, for 3 hours and I could see it would be impossible to get lost or accidentally venture somewhere unsafe. He told me the area was very safe, and that Mexicans didn’t enjoy the cold (avg temp was low 70’s in the day, upper 40’s in the evening) and didn’t really venture out to this area in the winter. He said they flocked to the area in the summer, and even then, it was relatively safe, but like any high traffic tourist area. This wasn’t an area of high-rise luxury hotels, but a place where people around the country often came for holiday to summer “cottages” that had been in their families for years. In addition to locals who lived there year-round, there were a lot of expats who lived here through the winter months.
I felt a lot better about my surroundings. I reached out to a friend of my neighbors who he had said was to be trusted. He trusted no one, so I felt pretty good about contacting her. She said there was a lovely Mexican couple who entertained audiences (him playing guitar and keyboards, and her singing) at various venues. She invited me to dinner and to hear them the following week. Because it was the week between Christmas and New Year’s, Enrique had told me a lot of businesses would be closed so I picked up groceries to get me through, including a roasted chicken from a local vendor that served nothing else and had been recommended by both Enrique and my neighbor.
I spent the next couple days reviewing what I had written so far. I got to a point where I was writing about my childhood. I will save the details of that for another time, but as I was trying to clarify the subtle nuances of what I was trying to relay, I quieted my mind, closed my eyes, and took myself back to that point in time to feel more deeply what that time had felt like. Whereas in the past, I had experienced that from an intellectual perspective…that of course had been expanded as I had matured throughout the years, now I experienced the same time from a “feeling” perspective. It was though I had been transported back to being 5 years old and feeling my stepfather’s stress and seeming disdain for me. Just a little disclaimer here…my father and I have long since mended our relationship…but it was very volatile throughout a good part of my life. I could feel how repulsive I felt, at the moment in time I was re-living. I had no defense mechanism at that point in my life, so rather than repel this as I began to do later in life, I absorbed it into my being. I felt scared, alone, and uncertain. What was wrong with me that I was so hate-able? as I shrunk at the way he was responding to me and the look on his face.
The words just poured out of me onto the page. THIS was what a former mentor had talked about that I had never quite understood. She had said in healing the past, it was imperative to go back and experience the sadness that had been suppressed at the time (for reasons of survival in the little child’s mind at the time), for the trapped energy, long since stored in the body, to be released. If it isn’t released…it is susceptible to be activated at the most inopportune times, in the form of “engageable rage” in a manner out of proportion to the event that triggered it. (i.e. think of the driver who seems ready to run you off the road because you were driving the speed limit in front of them, causing them to slow down, before they swerve around you going 90 in a 60-mph zone). In the past, I’ve not been one to cry easily, but on the rare occasion tears come to the surface, I almost always immediately pull myself together to stop them. But this time, I let the sobs come pouring out just as intensely as the words I had been clacking out at the keyboard a short time prior, so much so that I went to lay on my bed for a while, surprised at what was coming up. I knew I was releasing the sadness from over 50 years prior, that I had never allowed myself to feel before now.
Eventually, I made my way back to my laptop and picked up where I had left off. But my stomach was gurgling so much that I started to wonder if I was getting sick. I have often thought I have an ironclad stomach, and there isn’t much that ever effects it. Within a couple more hours, I knew I was in trouble. When the clock hit midnight, on New Year’s Eve, a few hours later, I was doubled up in my bed with what I assumed was the infamous “Montezuma’s Revenge”. I have never been so sick in my life. Waves of horrific pain seemed to continuously roll up my body for not just 24 hours, but the next 48 non-stop. If I wasn’t in bed, I was on the toilet, as endless fluids poured out of me. How can anything even be left? I was drinking water when I could, but also afraid I would start vomiting as well…though it seemed to go through me so fast, I didn’t think I needed to worry about that too much. I had covid 1-1/2 years prior, and had been the second most sick (to this time) I had ever been at that point, but back then I had prayed not to die (or have to go to the hospital) because my I felt like my kids still needed me, but this time I prayed to die. They’ll be fine, I thought as I writhed in pain.
On the third day, I woke up feeling like the worst was over. I was at least 50% improved, but that felt miraculous after the prior two days. Never had I thought the symptoms would surpass 1 day. I was supposed to be going to dinner with my neighbor’s friend the next day, and I messaged her to say I was going to have to reschedule because I had been so sick…and didn’t think I should be around people. She gently reprimanded me for not telling her sooner, and said she was going to get medicine and would be over asap. She brought me antibiotics (sold over the counter in Mexico) and Pepto-Bismol. I took the first pill immediately and washed it down with huge glass from one of the few bottles of electrolytes she had also brought.
She was an angel. She reminded me soooo much of my mom’s oldest sister, my Godmother, who had also just passed away. She had lived her whole life in Michigan, but had recently bought a home in Florida, that she rented out when gone, to cover her bills allowing her to be in Mexico. She had retired from Ford Motor Company, just like my dad. She had been a single mother, having gotten divorced when her only daughter was 3 years old. She had survived (barely) being one of only a few women in a managerial position back in those days. She had been coming to spend winters in Mexico for 17 years. She had never had any problems whatsoever. My mom hadn’t been married but had also been a single mom and had married my stepdad when I was 3. I couldn’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if my mom had raised me on her own…but I knew she wouldn’t have had it in her to do so. I was so grateful to this woman who had come to my rescue, and we grew to be close friends in the time I remained.
By the next day, I was back to writing, weak, but happy to not have anywhere I had to be.
The following week, we made it out to dinner, as planned, and enjoyed the music of “Sensa Nova” at a restaurant on the beach. There were maybe 200 people there, and I was shocked to realize they were all snowbirds from the U.S. or Canada. This many people found a way to winter in Mexico??? She invited me to walk the beach for sea glass the next morning, and I fell deeply enamored with collecting rocks. It was my first time experiencing a beach there, yet I had been there almost a month.
My neighbor had told me she was great, in part that because just like him, she liked to keep to herself, and I was glad for that because I was still on a mission to finish writing (and I hadn’t gotten all that far). I wasn’t good at having boundaries…and was happy to know I wouldn’t have to. I had a real problem with saying no if anyone ever asked me to do anything, and while I’m able to switch gears easily, I also knew it often got in the way of accomplishing my goals.
I had told everyone that had mentioned the possibility, that they couldn’t come visit me while I was in Mexico. This was hard for me, because I felt selfish that I would have this whole house, in what I was discovering was an amazing place, and not letting anyone else experience it. The only one I said could come was my good friend I had worked at the airport with. She had done much of my night shift training, and picked up a few of my shifts, as well as covered the possibility of me being called in for mandatory shifts while I was in Mexico both times with my daughters, and the Orlando trip, as well. She reminded me of myself…in that she worked too hard and too much and wasn’t one to ever ask for help. She hadn’t had a vacation in years, and rarely used her flight benefits, which was preposterous to me. Her birthday was mid-February, and I was determined to be done with a draft of the book by then, so I could take a break and finally explore the area with her.
But several days prior to her arrival, I started to panic. Even though I had started over from scratch, I really hadn’t gotten any further than I had been with the first version of the book. Except for my fascia blasting routine (including binge watching Netflix), 2-3 times a week, I never did anything but write. I just could not get any further and I was frustrated as hell. I decided I was just not going to worry about it. If it doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done. Maybe a break is exactly what I need, but because I was so uptight, I decided to research where I could get a massage to relax into the possibility of unfulfilled expectations. I’d still have another month left when she went home, and I would just buckle down and get it done then.
I’m going to skip the summary of the amazingly insightful, joyful 6 weeks that followed for now, and you can read about them once the book is done (since as you know by now, it didn’t get done during my time in Mexico), but I want to wrap this story up with my drive back to the states.
I had decided that I was going to follow another friend I had made, who lived in Mexico year-round but worked remotely for a company in Tucson. She was going back for a meeting she had to attend in person. Better to be in a caravan of sorts, rather than wing it on my own. I wasn’t as worried about the bulk of the drive, but I was concerned about finding my way to the proper border crossing area toward the end. She wanted to be on the road by 7:00 a.m.
I couldn’t get ahold of my neighbor for several days before I left. I knew he was at sea, but he had always been easy to get ahold of anytime I had needed to. I was worried about leaving, given his extreme uneasiness with the security of his home, without having instructions as to how I should lock up the house, set the alarm, or to whom I should give the keys. His friend, whom I had met, had gone home early for the season because her grandson was getting married. I had never gotten the contact information for the woman who had left me the keys in the first place.
Other than those two people, he didn’t seem to trust anyone. I didn’t want to leave the keys in the house, and pull the door shut behind me because he wasn’t due back for another month and the deadbolt can’t be locked from the outside, and because the door of the iron fence enclosed front porch would not be able to be locked either, the house would be particularly easy to break into. Worst of all, I wasn’t sure if even had another set of keys with him. To be honest, I was sure pirates had gotten him and that he was dead. I flipped through some papers he had spread out in his closet, that I had been careful not to touch prior, to see if I could find any information on his sister or nephew, his only living relatives. I couldn’t. I figured when I got back to Colorado, I would ask the tenants of his house for their landlords info, since he had at least told me his nephew handled their tenancy.
I made an executive decision to lock all the locks possible and give the remote control and keys to another friend “I” at least trusted and was going to tell him to meet up with her when he got back so he could get them. This friend rented a casita owned by the the friend I was following to the border, on the same property as the house she had bought and where I was meeting her. I left the keys and remote with a note in a flowerpot outside her door. And we were off. About an hour into the trip, we passed a hoard of Federale (Mexican National Police) who looked to be staking out a gas station on the other side of the road. I hadn’t seen anything quite like this the entire time I had been in Mexico. Since we were just driving the other direction on the opposite side of the median, it didn’t affect us at all. I was relieved, nonetheless, to be following another American woman, who spoke Spanish fluently and had residency status. The next few hours were uneventful. My neighbor messaged me to apologize that he had been without internet for several days and that I should leave the keys in a particular spot in the garage and then throw the remote under the door of the garage as it was closing. I had told him in a slew of messages that I was leaving town early that morning, and now it was 4 hours past the time I had left. I said OK and messaged my friend to do just that. I sent him the picture she sent me of where she had put the keys and told him it was done. At least I didn’t have to worry about how he was going to get them or trying to reach his next of kin.
An hour later, we were nearing the border and had started to see signs with specific directions. I was on her tail closer than ever. She changed lanes and I did too. Suddenly I heard a loud “boom” at the same time my car jerked. I looked in my rearview mirror, saw nothing, and thought possibly my tire had blown. I kept driving, my heart racing, but it seemed to be driving fine. No way was I going to stop if I didn’t have to, but then a car drove up along my left and a woman, in the passenger seat, was waving at me to pull off to the side. At first, I tried to ignore them…so close to being out of the country…but the driver was basically forcing me off to the right of the highway. I noticed there were a couple of semi-trucks also pulled over a little further up and I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.
Reluctantly, I pulled onto the shoulder, and rolled my window down about 2”. The driver got out and walked up to my car. The woman passenger was walking around the front of her car acting incensed. Meanwhile, he told me that I had crossed the line into his lane and had basically sideswiped the front fender of his car. Surprised at how this could’ve happened since I did turn around and look before I changed lanes, I thought “well, maybe…there is that one damn blind spot” where my clothes were piled a little higher than they should’ve been.
Of course, I can’t see this from where I’m sitting in my car because he is now parked directly in front of me and I can only see the back of his car.
He told me his headlight had broken as a result. He told me to come see for myself. No fucking way was I getting out of the car, and I told him so. I was obviously, shaken and his demeanor relaxed a bit. He said his name was Jesus (if only, I thought) and asked if I was American, as he reached his hand in through the small opening as to shake mine. He spoke perfect English and seemed very kind. At least he doesn’t seem to be part of a drug cartel. He asked if I had insurance. I said yes. “Mexican insurance”, he asked?. Yes, I said. He said, “well, if the police do come, you and I are both going to get a ticket for the accident”. He said maybe he could look up on his phone how much it would cost to order a new light, and that maybe he could do the work himself and that would cost less than getting tickets. He went and got into his car, leaving the door open, and came back a few minutes later. It would be like 1,0000,000000000 pesos, as he showed me a picture on his phone. I’m exaggerating, of course, but my mind was spinning and the last thing I could do in that moment was mentally convert the amount to U.S. currency, so he quickly added that would be about $250 US, but that we could split that equally. I told him I did not have that much cash. I told him I had $100 (which was the amount of money my neighbor had told me to have in my decoy wallet and I knew I still had it in there). He didn’t say anything, and I grabbed the wallet off the seat next to me and took out the wad of small bills to count it. Interestingly, he counted out loud as I was doing it. A wave of relief washed over me as I kept going after $100. Somewhere along the line, I must have put more cash in there. I handed him the $125 over the top of the window, and stuffed the remaining $45 back in my wallet. He thanked me and walked back to his car. I had no idea what kind of damage had happened to my car, and I really didn’t care. I just wanted to be back on U.S. soil.
You might be wondering what happened to my friend. Especially since we had been at somewhat of a crossroads, she had been paying more attention to the road, getting over to merge toward the border crossing turnoff, and hadn’t noticed what was going on behind her. When she realized I was no longer there, she had called a couple times to see where I was. I answered on her second attempt, while he had gone back to his car to research headlights and told her what was going on. She asked if I wanted her to turn around and come back. I told her no because I felt terrible that I knew she was pressed for time. Not only did she have her meeting to get to, but she had also had an appointment beforehand with her hairdresser. I had told her I felt sure that everything was going to be ok.
I pulled back onto the highway. It was incredibly confusing navigating the route on my own for the first time and the way to go was not very well marked. I started down one road only to realize this is where all the trucks (and no cars) were crossing and it looked like it could be hours…I did a u-turn (a little worried that might not go over well if border agents were watching) and headed back down the way I had come, praying since it was one-way only and I was now driving against would-be traffic, but thankfully no cars came until I was making a sharp turn back onto the original road from which I had come. I drove a little further and there were cement barricades on either side of one very narrow lane. I had no idea where to go, but worried if I didn’t go in that lane and was supposed to, I would miss the border crossing area entirely, and I really, really wanted off of this highway and out of Mexico, so I took a chance.
After the equivalent of a couple blocks distance, I passed a little guard house where there were several Federale with automatic weapons. Fuckola! I hadn’t seen one other car go this way, and there were no cars behind me. The cement barricades were still on either side of me. Where the fuck was I? I slowed way down, but they ignored me, so I kept going. After the equivalent of another few blocks…and a big curve to the left…I finally saw several lanes full of cars, brake lights glaring…and the line of customs officers in their little huts at the front. I went to the line of cars furthest to the left, as it seemed shortest and there, just two cars ahead of me, was my friend. The border agent asked me maybe 3 questions and I was free to pass. An hour or so later, I stopped with my friend to grab lunch and check out my passenger side rear fender. There was no dent, but rather thick, long black rubber streaks that looked like they could be rubbed off (I later confirmed this to be true, with just about a quarter sized scrape down to the metal in one area once I had rubbed it all off).
Later that evening I messaged my neighbor what had happened when he asked if I had made it home ok. He was sure it was the classic “bump and grab” carjacking scheme, that after the myriad of other things he had warned me of, I had no idea was prevalent in the area (that he had planned to tell me about, had he had an internet connection). He asked if it was an older model car that had hit me. It was. He said they adhere some sort of rubber bumping thing to their bumper, so they don’t cause any major damage to the car they hit. He said if I would have gotten out of the car to go look at the damage on the man’s car (which he was certain hadn’t been damaged at all), his partner would have jumped in my car and driven away. I don’t doubt it. I was so frazzled, that if I had gotten out to follow him, I was sure I wouldn’t have thought to grab my purse or even my phone. My car had a push start and if the keys were in the vicinity, and they would have been, it could have easily been driven away with everything I had brought, in it.
While in San Carlos, I met droves of American and Canadian women who drive, often solo, to this part of Mexico every single year and have never had a single issue. All that having been said, I will go back, but I will most definitely be flying.
Love love love!!